History of the Hawks

When legendary comics writer Gardner Fox was putting together some
more features in 1939 to accompany the Flash in his own series that
was set to begin in 1940, the second he thought of, that being
Hawkman, came to him as an idea while watching a bird that was
flying around outside his office in New York City.

The idea of humans who could fly using man-made
wings dates back as early as an ancient fable of a man and his son
who flew on wings to Sicily to evade capture by the Roman Empire,
though the son, Icarus, sadly fell to his doom after he foolishly
flew too close to the sunlight and melted the ingredients holding
his wings together. And a few years before Hawkman came to be, the
idea of a race of bird people was featured in Flash Gordon’s comic
strip. Fox took his inspirations from Egyptian mythology of Hawk
Gods (and even avatars), writing the story of a noble prince, Khufu
Kha-Tarr, who was leading the fight against an evil pharaoh and his
scheming high priest, Hath-Set, with the help of his lover, princess
Chay-Ara, a renegade member of the community the evil pharaoh and
his high priest came from, who was ashamed of her community’s wicked
ways. To aid Khufu and his followers in their battle, they had to
their advantage a magical form of wings and armor called Ninth
Metal, which could provide the wearer with superhuman strength (not
quite as much as Superman’s, to be sure, but still very effective)
and flight, plus, there was a mask to accompany it. They defeated
the evil Pharoah, but Khufu and Chay-Ara both died the same day the
battle took place, when Hath-Set, the power-greedy villain he
himself was, ambushed and slew them inside a temple, and swore that
they would meet again in reincaration.

And indeed, three of these figures from ancient times, Khufu,
Chay-Ara, and the sinister Hath-Set, would eventually be born again
in modern times (and even before that, as was later established,
there may have been a couple more incarnations throughout the
centuries too), meet again, and the goodies would battle the baddie
and his cronies once again. Khufu would be reborn as Carter Hall, an
archaeologist in New York, Chay-Ara would become news reporter
Sheira Saunders, and Hath-Set would reappear as an evil scientist
named Dr. Anton Hastor, who was a warmongering schemer, and wanted
to try and conquer NYC for starters. This time Hawkman would also
certainly get help from his lover whom he was lucky to remeet then,
when she worked out a costume of her own as Hawkgirl (to address a
woman as a girl already became common since perhaps the 19th
century, so of course it was quite possible to have Hawkman’s female
partner in crimefighting bear a codename like that as well), and it
could very well be said that Hawkgirl was the first female take on a
role started by a male protagonist in the history of comics, years
before Supergirl and Batgirl made their debuts in the Silver Age.
She teamed up with him on various occasions in the strip, helping
him in the fight against evil wherever it may be.

Hawkman was the only other ongoing
feature to last in Flash Comics
during its initial 9-year run from 1940-49 for the whole of its run
back then, and it was one of the best comic series next to Wonder
Woman to use ancient mythologies as its inspirations. Not only that,
but Hawkman would also serve as the chairman for the Justice Society
of America for its 11-year run in All-Star
Comics from 1940-51 as well, alongside other great
superheroes such as Flash and Green Lantern, plus the first Mr.
Terrific, Sandman, Black Canary, and even the Spectre, fighting in
WW2 and against many other evils wherever they be in the world.

His early depiction was as a figure of dread, and it could at times
be one of the rougher series for its time, though there were some
times when the writers would offer some tongue-in-cheek adventures
for him, such as in the “Simple
Simon meets the Hawkman” story from the time, and his
hand-held weapons would consist of such ones as truncheons and
battle axes.

One thing that’s a bit of a shame though, is that, unless included
with Jay Garrick’s own adventures in the Golden Age Flash Archives published to date, as of
this writing, I have no idea as to if a lot of these first
adventures are available in trade paperback archives! But luckily,
it does appear that of recent, DC has already gotten around to that,
publishing at least one trade of the beginning adventures in 1940.

The Silver/Bronze period

During the
Silver/Bronze Age period, when the concept of two alternate earth
dimensions was featured in the DCU, another Hawkman and Hawkwoman
(yep, she did ascend to that title then!) were spotlighted in their
own series that began in 1964, this time being Katar Hol and Shayera
Thal. Under the guidance of editor Julius Schwartz, these
characters, as depicted then and up to the mid-1990s, were police
officers from the planet Thanagar, one that was influenced by a lot
of the warrior concepts that Hawkman had used in his own time, and
the costumes were more or less their uniforms. Their enemies would
include such adversaries as Byth, a shape-changing criminal from
their own planet, the Shadow Thief, a crook from earth who stole
Thanagarian technology to achieve his goals, and also the IQ gang.
They lived in Midway City, where Katar worked as curator for the
city museum. And once again, Gardner Fox would be the writer for
these new Silver Age adventures. Alas, while it did run for awhile,
it ran low in readership after several years, and was cancelled
towards the end of the Silver Age, becoming merged with the Atom’s
book as a single series starring both heroes together (but lest we
forget Hawkwoman, of course!). But it was pretty good stuff, and if
there was anything Hawkman did accomplish then, it’s that he was a
prominent member many times in Justice
League of America, where he'd become a very prominent
mainstay for many years to come.

Plus, Zatanna first made her grand debut in his book, in the fourth
issue!

An interesting aside, while Hawkwoman then was able to join the
Justice League as an honorary guest member, a rule stipulated by the team’s members at the time that said
that two superheroes with the same powers/skills couldn’t be
full-time members on the team prevented her from gaining a full-time
membership for awhile. But in the mid-1970’s she lobbied against the
rule, and won in getting it tossed out, and getting a full-time
membership with the Justice League at last. And, during the Bronze
Age, the Hawks found more space for their own stories in special
backup tales published in Detective Comics, and even World's
Finest Comics.

After the Crisis on Infinite
Earths in 1985, some changes were made just as much with
the Hawks as with everybody else, and so it was established that the
Silver Age characters were actually the Carter and Sheira Hall who'd
debuted in the Golden Age, and moved on from the Justice Society to
the Justice League later on, to continue their careers, and also to
offer some training to the newer generation of superheroes in the
DCU. What happened to exact status of Katar Hol and Shayera Thal,
would be revealed a couple years later, when a new rendition of the
Thanagarians was produced.

The Iron Age and so forth

When the 1980’s rolled in, writer Tony Isabella wrote a miniseries
called The Shadow War of Hawkman
in 1985. And when the post-Crisis era came around, another Hawkman
series was produced that ran 17 issues, and lasted for about 2
years. Then, in 1989, DC tried it again, this time calling the
series Hawkworld. It was
here that, under the pen of writer Tim Truman, Katar Hol and Shayera Thal were reworked once
again for the Iron Age of comics, and this time, Thanagar underwent
rendition as a much darker, more depressing planet in which
opression had reigned very badly in its early years. Unfortunately,
while this new rendition, titled as it was due to the fact that it
more or less referred to the planet Thanagar, did have its hight
points, especially when you take writer John Ostrander's record into
consideration, some really lousy developments were brought up at the
time that undermined its impact, in which the newer Hawkman became a
drug addict (!), due to his despondence over the cruelty being
employed by the people of Thanagar, following a civil war upon the
planet. And some confusing explanations came up for how the Golden
Age Hawks could be in the Justice League now that the Silver Age
Hawks were being retconned. Other than that, some of the series did
have its moments, but not enough to sustain it artistically for
long. (There was also, oddly enough, a third Hawkman character who
turned up at the time, named Fel Andar, another Thanagarian, who, it
turned out, was masquerading as the son of Carter Hall, the original
Hawkman, but was really a spy for his own planet, on earth to gather
information about the earth during the Invasion crossover story of 1989.) Once again, it
was cancelled, and soon afterwards, it was revived briefly again as
another volume of Hawkman,
this time featuring Katar sans Shayera at his side working in
Detroit as a cop, but when Zero
Hour came around in 1994, a storyline was presented wherein
Katar, Carter and Sheira were all merged together as one being, that
having been a "Hawk Avatar", which ended up killing Sheira in the
process. It was very hard to explain this whole merging idea to
readers when they did it back then, and that’s when it hit a very
low point before being cancelled in 1996 and going into limbo for
several years as a series concept.

And I guess you could say that, with Katar Hol’s death a year or two
afterwards in the JLA,
that that ended up marking one of a few “successor” characters to a
role hitherto taken by another one, that DC decided just didn’t work
out in the end, and so they did away with them. As for Shayera Thal,
she's still around, living on earth in the Chicago area, but no
longer a major player.

As somebody who has a special appreciation for minor heroes and
co-stars, I felt that this is something that could use the best
possible fansite dedicated to profiling the various heroes and
villains who make up this world of the hawk from the
Golden/Silver/Bronze Ages, plus even the various powers and weapons
they employ, and their bases of operations around the United States.

So, let's fly high with the Hawks, ladies and gentlemen!

About the fansite's creator

I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974, and immigrated to Israel in late
1983. I read plenty of comic books when I was young, beginning my
readership at the early age of 6, and while I hadn't begun reading Hawkman's own adventures as
quickly as I'd like to, when I did, I was quite excited with some of
the adventures I came upon, and enjoyed it very much.

When I began practicing on building websites, I noticed that there
didn't seem to be any really authentic comic book fansites for
Hawkman and Hawkgirl on the internet, and so, I thought to myself,
why not build one of my own, where I could gather as much of the
best information as possible on the Winged Warriors of the DCU, and
offer one of the most helpful websites for information on two of
comicdom's best and classic characters?

So here it is now, my very own website dedicated to Hawkman and
Hawkgirl, and the many other characters surrounding them in their
adventures, and I hope you'll enjoy what I've provided here. It was
a pleasure and a labor of love to work on, and I certainly hope
it'll turn out to be one of the best fansites available for
everybody.